Why You Should Use Plastic Business Cards

Unless given to you at a bar on a night out (in which case they are probably taken home and framed) business cards are often folded up, put somewhere and never seen again. With the introduction of plastic business cards, however, it’s out with the fold and in with the new!

Business cards provide people with fundamental details such as your name and contact details, but what many businesses seem to forget is that they can also say a lot about your brand. Countless companies spend a fortune on fancy advertisements that do a great job of grabbing consumers’ attention, but they then proceed to hand out plain and boring business cards. Most forget how important it is to make a good first impression!

Business cards serve two main purposes: to make a networking connection to potentially gain business, and to provide the recipient with the means to refer your business to a friend. The problem with the latter is that traditional business cards tend to deteriorate more and more as they are passed on from person to person, and this is where plastic business cards come in!

So what are the key advantages to using plastic business cards?

Durability

Even if we had a third hand we’d still run out of fingers trying to count the number of times we’ve crumpled up a business card and forgotten all about it. Have a quick look inside your wallet, what do you see – plastic cards making themselves at home, or paper cards looking tattered and worn? Me too. In fact, you could be seeing more and more plastic in your purse or wallet soon, as the Bank of Englandplans to take advantage of this durability and have plastic bank notes in circulation by 2016.

Weeks, months and sometimes even years can pass before customers actually decide to make contact with you and it is important that your business card still looks engaging long after your competitors’ cards have begun to look scruffy and uninviting.

Technology

Admittedly it can sometimes be quite difficult to decide what important information to present on such a small business card. I mean, you only have the front and the back side to display information on, right? Wrong! What about the inside? NFC, a new wireless technology that can be placed inside business cards, allows mobile phones to interact with a business card by simply tapping against it.

What happens next is completely up to you – the card is your oyster (and no, I don’t mean that it will let you travel freely through London!). It can take the customer to a website, it can start a video on the customers screen, it can do just about anything you want it to do. This technology really is the perfect way to leave a lasting impression on a customer and to make your business stand out.

Appearance

Handing over a business card is often the first step in building a business relationship and, consequently, it is absolutely essential to leave a memorable and lasting impression on the customer. With regards to how plastic business cards look and feel, it goes without saying that they are head and shoulders above their paper counterparts.

When a customer walks away with your business card you want them, and whoever they show it to, to have a clear picture of the kind of business you are and to have a strong impression of the products or services you offer. Plastic business cards allow for a huge variety of finishes and provide a great way for you to stand out from the crowd.

Design Opportunities

Business cards can say an awful lot about a business’ personality, and many companies fail to see the enormous advertising opportunities that can accompany this small card. When designing a plastic business card, the opportunities are almost endless (I say almost because I doubt you’ll be able to create a card that makes you a cup of coffee, but saying that you could always create one that doubles up as a coaster!). Producing an innovative and unique business card is the perfect way to further distance your business from competition.

Here are some more examples of some very cool and very eye-catching plastic cards:

Transparent Business Card by Lumen Bigott

Blackwire Card by Alen Type08 Pavlovic

Figmints Plastic Business Cards

Personal Business Card by Frantisek Krivda

KB plastic business card

Colorful Business Cards by Paul Maloney

Photography Plastico Business Card

David Airey’s Plastic Cards

Amber Weinberg’s plastic cards

Business Cards by Franz Jeitz

Posted by Matt Payne

This post was written by Matt Payne who is the owner of Oomph, a plastic card printer company based in Hampshire. Please visit online at http://www.madebyoomph.co.uk/ for a full range of cards and printing services.